Akamai to Buy Speedera in Stock Deal

Akamai says the $130 million acquisition will help it compete against larger managed services vendors.

Akamai Technologies Inc. Wednesday announced plans to acquire distributed content delivery service provider Speedera Networks Inc. in a stock-for-stock merger transaction.
Under the terms of the deal, valued at $130 million, Akamai will acquire all of the outstanding common stock, preferred stock, and vested and unvested stock options of Speedera and its India-based, wholly-owned subsidiary, by issuing approximately 12 million shares of Akamai common stock, the companies said. The deal is expected to close at the end of the second quarter, pending regulatory and Speedera stockholders approval, the companies said.

Officials at Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai said the acquisition of Speedera, of Santa Clara, Calif., will help Akamai to better compete against larger managed services vendors.

The two companies have in the past sued one another over trade secret violations; however, the companies said all pending litigation between them will be dissolved when the deal closes.
"The combination of Akamai and Speedera will provide customers with the best attributes of both companies," said Paul Sagan, president and CEO-elect of Akamai, in a statement. "Akamai and Speedera are customer-focused companies that emphasize leading-edge technology development to help businesses and government agencies to deliver more effective, higher performing, and lower cost Websites and online applications. We believe that this combination will benefit our customers, employees and shareholders."
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Darryl K. Taft covers the development tools and developer-related issues beat from his office in Baltimore. He has more than 10 years of experience in the business and is always looking for the next scoop. Taft is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was named 'one of the most active middleware reporters in the world' by The Middleware Co. He also has his own card in the 'Who's Who in Enterprise Java' deck.